One of the most — if not the most — imaginative short film directors out there, Brian Lonano, is planning on upping his considerable game on his forthcoming film, Gwilliam. To be able to do so, he’s turned to IndieGoGo to help crowdfund a movie that he says will “test your stomach’s endurance and challenge your sexual functioning for weeks after viewing.”
For about 10 years, Lonano has been cranking out enormously entertaining lo-fi effects extravaganzas like 2008’s Attackazoids! and 2012’s The Transmission. His previous film, the insanely crowd-pleasing Crow Hand!!!, screened at rockin’ film fests all over the world, including SXSW and the Hollywood Underground Film Festival.
Gwilliam is being described as “a terrible, terrible love story between man and goblin” and will feature a fully functioning animatronic puppet as the lead creature. On the human side of the cast, the film will star William Tokarsky, the veteran character actor...
For about 10 years, Lonano has been cranking out enormously entertaining lo-fi effects extravaganzas like 2008’s Attackazoids! and 2012’s The Transmission. His previous film, the insanely crowd-pleasing Crow Hand!!!, screened at rockin’ film fests all over the world, including SXSW and the Hollywood Underground Film Festival.
Gwilliam is being described as “a terrible, terrible love story between man and goblin” and will feature a fully functioning animatronic puppet as the lead creature. On the human side of the cast, the film will star William Tokarsky, the veteran character actor...
- 6/8/2015
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
We love us some Brian Lonano in these parts, the cult fave short filmmaker having turned up in this pages almost right from the very beginning with such titles as Attackazoids, The Transmission and Crow Hand. Any new Lonano is a cause for celebration in our books and he's at it again, raising a mere seven grand to craft his latest short film opus - a tale of man-goblin love titled Gwilliam. Veteran character actor William Tokarsky makes up the man part of the equation with the goblin to be an animatronic puppet, which is largely where the crowd funding kicks in. Seriously, these guys are awesome. So check out Crow Hand below - available online only for the duration of the crowd funding campaign...
[Read the whole post on twitchfilm.com...]...
[Read the whole post on twitchfilm.com...]...
- 6/1/2015
- Screen Anarchy
The 9th annual Montreal Underground Film Festival is three nights of short experimental films from around the world and one after-fest feature film the following early afternoon. It runs May 22-25 at the Bar Populaire for the Opening Night festivities, then at the microcinema at 6029A Ave. du Parc for the rest of the fest.
Opening Night consists of two short film compilations and will feature animation by Ben Popp, sci-fi by Brian Lonano, an experimental short by Neil Ira Needleman and lots more.
Other shorts blocks of the festival are broken up by subject, such as experimental documentaries, horror(ish) films, personal works, meditations on water, and other intriguing concepts.
Some films to look out for are Lori Felker‘s naturally electric music video, Scattered in the Wind; Dan Browne‘s epic lifetime amalgamation of images, Memento Mori; Joseph Christiana‘s hair-raisingly eerie Meat Cycle; a new collaborative piece between Karen and Jaimz Asmundson,...
Opening Night consists of two short film compilations and will feature animation by Ben Popp, sci-fi by Brian Lonano, an experimental short by Neil Ira Needleman and lots more.
Other shorts blocks of the festival are broken up by subject, such as experimental documentaries, horror(ish) films, personal works, meditations on water, and other intriguing concepts.
Some films to look out for are Lori Felker‘s naturally electric music video, Scattered in the Wind; Dan Browne‘s epic lifetime amalgamation of images, Memento Mori; Joseph Christiana‘s hair-raisingly eerie Meat Cycle; a new collaborative piece between Karen and Jaimz Asmundson,...
- 5/19/2014
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
Card playing — e.g. games like poker, blackjack, gin, etc. — is an American pastime. However, in the short documentary Friday Night Magic, get introduced to a different type of card playing you may not expect adults to be obsessing over: The two decades old trading card game Magic the Gathering.
Watching other people enjoy their obsessions can be a joyous experience, and Friday Night Magic perfectly captures that spirit, catching Magic the Gathering fans as they ride the high of slapping down cards on folding tables with their like-minded brethren just for the sheer thrill of imaginary battle.
Filmed at Get There Games in Castleton Corners on Staten Island, co-directors Holly Lynn Ellis and Andrew Tank Rivara capture a diverse range of personalities from all walks of life in the greater New York area. Most compelling of the bunch is Mitchell Stein, a Manhattan attorney who has been playing for nineteen years,...
Watching other people enjoy their obsessions can be a joyous experience, and Friday Night Magic perfectly captures that spirit, catching Magic the Gathering fans as they ride the high of slapping down cards on folding tables with their like-minded brethren just for the sheer thrill of imaginary battle.
Filmed at Get There Games in Castleton Corners on Staten Island, co-directors Holly Lynn Ellis and Andrew Tank Rivara capture a diverse range of personalities from all walks of life in the greater New York area. Most compelling of the bunch is Mitchell Stein, a Manhattan attorney who has been playing for nineteen years,...
- 11/18/2013
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
This year will see the 9th annual edition of the Portland Underground Film Festival, which also marks it as the second edition run by filmmaker Bob Moricz and the first edition that will run for six nights at two different theaters. The fun begins at Puff’s traditional home of the Clinton Street Theater on August 21-23, then will conclude on August 24-26 at the Hollywood Theater.
Festival director Moricz, a maverick filmmaker himself, makes some bold moves with this year’s Puff with a real idiosyncratic lineup of films. For example, the opening night program — when most fests like to show the best film they can — Puff is hosting, along with Grand Detour, a special event looking for the worst films they can find in the “open mic style” showcase called War of the Worst. This will then be followed by a special program of the best Spanish underground...
Festival director Moricz, a maverick filmmaker himself, makes some bold moves with this year’s Puff with a real idiosyncratic lineup of films. For example, the opening night program — when most fests like to show the best film they can — Puff is hosting, along with Grand Detour, a special event looking for the worst films they can find in the “open mic style” showcase called War of the Worst. This will then be followed by a special program of the best Spanish underground...
- 8/5/2013
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
It was a dark and stormy night. A little bit of absinthe combined with a rickety, old static-filled TV provides the perfect combination of spooky chills in Brian Lonano‘s The Transmission. Has an elderly man had a little too much to drink or is he actually seeing the ghost of his dead wife on his television set? Or are there more malevolent forces at play here?
Although The Transmission stars two regular collaborators with Lonano — Don Singalewitch and Holly Lynn Ellis, both of whom starred in the filmmaker’s breakout hit Attackazoids! — the film is a bit of a departure in his style.
Lonano has been highly praised for his lo-fi special effects ingenuity, which usually features heavy usage of stop-motion and regular motion puppetry. But here he seems to be going for a more ethereal and atmospheric kind of horror, which is appropriate given the ghostly subject matter.
Although The Transmission stars two regular collaborators with Lonano — Don Singalewitch and Holly Lynn Ellis, both of whom starred in the filmmaker’s breakout hit Attackazoids! — the film is a bit of a departure in his style.
Lonano has been highly praised for his lo-fi special effects ingenuity, which usually features heavy usage of stop-motion and regular motion puppetry. But here he seems to be going for a more ethereal and atmospheric kind of horror, which is appropriate given the ghostly subject matter.
- 10/31/2012
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
Indie director Brian Lonano is a great favorite in these parts thanks to his lovingly handcrafted, lo-fidelity but high-charm visual aesthetic. Lonano takes budget limits and turns them into strengths in ways that few can, the most recent example of this being horror short The Transmission. Having wrapped up its festival run, Lonano has released The Transmission online for all to enjoy along with a tutorial on how to execute these low budget effects yourself. Check both videos out below....
- 10/23/2012
- Screen Anarchy
The 11th annual Lausanne Underground Film Festival is packed to the gills with outrageous cinema from all over the world, featuring several filmmaker retrospectives and movies screening in competition at several locations on Oct. 17-21.
The big guest of honor this year is the legendary John Waters, who will be attending the fest with several of his own classics, such as Pink Flamingos, Female Trouble and Desperate Living, as well as showing some of his favorite B-movie inspirations, such as William Girdler’s blaxploitation demonic possession flick Abby, Armando Bo’s Argentinian sexploitation Fuego, Robinson Devor’s controversial bestiality doc Zoo and more. Plus, Waters will perform his acclaimed “This Filthy World” one-man show.
Other Luff special guests include Christoph Schlingensief, the confrontational German filmmaker of 100 Years of Adolf Hitler, The German Chainsaw Massacre, The 120 Days of Bottrop and more; Richard Stanley, the South African genre filmmaker of the cult...
The big guest of honor this year is the legendary John Waters, who will be attending the fest with several of his own classics, such as Pink Flamingos, Female Trouble and Desperate Living, as well as showing some of his favorite B-movie inspirations, such as William Girdler’s blaxploitation demonic possession flick Abby, Armando Bo’s Argentinian sexploitation Fuego, Robinson Devor’s controversial bestiality doc Zoo and more. Plus, Waters will perform his acclaimed “This Filthy World” one-man show.
Other Luff special guests include Christoph Schlingensief, the confrontational German filmmaker of 100 Years of Adolf Hitler, The German Chainsaw Massacre, The 120 Days of Bottrop and more; Richard Stanley, the South African genre filmmaker of the cult...
- 10/18/2012
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
Oct. 12
8:00 p.m.
Spectacle Theater
124 South 3rd Street
Brooklyn, New York 11211
Hosted by: InFEST Underground
The InFEST Underground screening series is hosting an epic night of dark and twisted short films, plus the acclaimed Brazilian horror flick Beyond the Grave, directed by Davi de Oliveira Pinheiro.
Beyond the Grave, a post-apocalyptic zombie western, has been tearing it up on the underground film festival circuit the past few years, winning the Best Horror Film award at the Arizona Underground Film Festival, and screening at the Montreal Underground and at the B-Movie, Underground and Trash Film Festival. In the film, a police officer in a desolate wasteland filled with freaks tracks down a possessed serial killer. Watch the trailer below!
But, before the feature presentation, is a 98-minute block of short films from a few of the masters of the form, including Brian Lonano, Kevin Lonano, Carey Burtt and more. The...
8:00 p.m.
Spectacle Theater
124 South 3rd Street
Brooklyn, New York 11211
Hosted by: InFEST Underground
The InFEST Underground screening series is hosting an epic night of dark and twisted short films, plus the acclaimed Brazilian horror flick Beyond the Grave, directed by Davi de Oliveira Pinheiro.
Beyond the Grave, a post-apocalyptic zombie western, has been tearing it up on the underground film festival circuit the past few years, winning the Best Horror Film award at the Arizona Underground Film Festival, and screening at the Montreal Underground and at the B-Movie, Underground and Trash Film Festival. In the film, a police officer in a desolate wasteland filled with freaks tracks down a possessed serial killer. Watch the trailer below!
But, before the feature presentation, is a 98-minute block of short films from a few of the masters of the form, including Brian Lonano, Kevin Lonano, Carey Burtt and more. The...
- 10/9/2012
- by screenings
- Underground Film Journal
2012 appears to be the year for younger, i.e. under 10 years old, underground fests to blow it wide open and go for broke. This time it’s the 4th annual Oakland Underground Film Festival that is expanding its horizons into a blowout four-day, much more densely packed affair, running on Sept. 27-30 at several different locations.
Expanding on the types of films they screen, this year Oakuff is jammed pack with a wide variety of documentaries, thrillers, a bevy of short films and a special tribute to blaxploitation films hosted by BadAzz MoFo’s David Walker.
The fest opens on the 27th with skateboarding filmmaker Stacy Peralta’s latest, Bones Brigade: An Autobiography, which documents his own involvement with California board culture along with peers like Tony Hawk and Rodney Mullen. Following that will be Ya’Ke Smith’s complex drama about the effects of child molestation.
Other documentaries in...
Expanding on the types of films they screen, this year Oakuff is jammed pack with a wide variety of documentaries, thrillers, a bevy of short films and a special tribute to blaxploitation films hosted by BadAzz MoFo’s David Walker.
The fest opens on the 27th with skateboarding filmmaker Stacy Peralta’s latest, Bones Brigade: An Autobiography, which documents his own involvement with California board culture along with peers like Tony Hawk and Rodney Mullen. Following that will be Ya’Ke Smith’s complex drama about the effects of child molestation.
Other documentaries in...
- 9/25/2012
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
It’s a film festival! It’s a sideshow! It’s both! It’s the 12th annual Coney Island Film Festival, which will be taking over the world famous Sideshows by the Seashore and other venues on Sept. 21-23 at one of the most wonderful places on Earth: Coney Island!
This year’s fun begins on the 21st with the knock-’em-dead (literally) Opening Night film Play Dead, co-directed by underground journalist Shade Rupe and the world’s greatest silent magician, Teller. The film is a documentary performance of Teller and Coney Island’s own Todd Robbins hit live off-Broadway gore-a-thon.
Play Dead will then be followed by a wild Opening Night Party featuring a performance by Mr. Robbins, plus lots of burlesque performances, Go Go dancers and other crazy surprises.
Some of the other highlights of this year’s Ciff include the Mark Mori’s documentary Bettie Page Reveals All...
This year’s fun begins on the 21st with the knock-’em-dead (literally) Opening Night film Play Dead, co-directed by underground journalist Shade Rupe and the world’s greatest silent magician, Teller. The film is a documentary performance of Teller and Coney Island’s own Todd Robbins hit live off-Broadway gore-a-thon.
Play Dead will then be followed by a wild Opening Night Party featuring a performance by Mr. Robbins, plus lots of burlesque performances, Go Go dancers and other crazy surprises.
Some of the other highlights of this year’s Ciff include the Mark Mori’s documentary Bettie Page Reveals All...
- 9/18/2012
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
To celebrate their 5th anniversary, the Arizona Underground Film Festival has expanded to a whopping nine nights on Sept. 21-29 for a cinematic event the likes of Tucson has never seen before!
The shenanigans kick off with the opening night film The Legend of Kaspar Hauser, an experimental Italian feature directed by Davide Manuli and starring Vincent Gallo as the hero and the villain to a strange young boy, then end with the closing night film Jason M. Solomon’s nostalgic documentary 7 Years Underground: A 60′s Tale, which profiles the legendary Cafe Au Go Go in NYC that hosted such up-and-coming acts such as Jimi Hendrix, Frank Zappa, George Carlin, Lily Tomlin and more.
In between those two films lies a twisted carnage of movie mayhem, including Spencer Parsons’ demented homage to ’70s mystery cartoons Saturday Morning Massacre; Michael Melamedoff exploitative semi-doc The Exhibitionists; Stephen Amis’ Australian WWII sci-fi...
The shenanigans kick off with the opening night film The Legend of Kaspar Hauser, an experimental Italian feature directed by Davide Manuli and starring Vincent Gallo as the hero and the villain to a strange young boy, then end with the closing night film Jason M. Solomon’s nostalgic documentary 7 Years Underground: A 60′s Tale, which profiles the legendary Cafe Au Go Go in NYC that hosted such up-and-coming acts such as Jimi Hendrix, Frank Zappa, George Carlin, Lily Tomlin and more.
In between those two films lies a twisted carnage of movie mayhem, including Spencer Parsons’ demented homage to ’70s mystery cartoons Saturday Morning Massacre; Michael Melamedoff exploitative semi-doc The Exhibitionists; Stephen Amis’ Australian WWII sci-fi...
- 9/14/2012
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
Fantastic Fest recently announced their selection of more than 40 short films slated to slither and crawl into all the various orifices of this annual extravaganza of genre film. The biopsy of the best genre short films from around the globe will showcase works from several countries, including Spain, South Korea, Bangladesh, Australia, New Zealand, the Netherlands and more.
38-39°C (2011)
Regional Premiere
Director: Jason Hong, South Korea, 8 minutes
A father and son confront the emotional divide that separates them in the intimate setting of a Korean bathhouse.
88:88 (2012)
Regional Premiere
Director: Joey Ciccoline, USA, 14 minutes
Val has lost control of her life. Those around her deny the reality of the extraordinary experiences she feels powerless against. Realizing she must stand alone, she has only one remaining option – to find a way to fight back.
Advantageous (2012)
Regional Premiere
Director: Jennifer Phang, USA 23 minutes
Gwen is the spokesperson for a radical technology...
38-39°C (2011)
Regional Premiere
Director: Jason Hong, South Korea, 8 minutes
A father and son confront the emotional divide that separates them in the intimate setting of a Korean bathhouse.
88:88 (2012)
Regional Premiere
Director: Joey Ciccoline, USA, 14 minutes
Val has lost control of her life. Those around her deny the reality of the extraordinary experiences she feels powerless against. Realizing she must stand alone, she has only one remaining option – to find a way to fight back.
Advantageous (2012)
Regional Premiere
Director: Jennifer Phang, USA 23 minutes
Gwen is the spokesperson for a radical technology...
- 9/13/2012
- by Travis Keune
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
The official lineup of short films playing this year's Fantastic Fest in Austin, Texas, has been announced, and let's just say that there are lots of reasons why you should be packing your bags and heading to the Longhorn State!
From the Press Release:
Fantastic Fest is excited to announce the short film lineup for the eighth edition of Fantastic Fest, happening September 20th-27th in Austin, Texas. Fantastic Fest loves its short films - they provide a fertile ground for new and exciting filmmaking talent to show off their genre goods in an unrestrained format. Here is the lineup for Fantastic Fest 2012:
38-39°C (2011)
Regional Premiere
Director: Jason Hong, South Korea, 8 minutes
A father and son confront the emotional divide that separates them in the intimate setting of a Korean bathhouse.
88:88 (2012)
Regional Premiere
Director: Joey Ciccoline, USA, 14 minutes
Val has lost control of her life. Those around...
From the Press Release:
Fantastic Fest is excited to announce the short film lineup for the eighth edition of Fantastic Fest, happening September 20th-27th in Austin, Texas. Fantastic Fest loves its short films - they provide a fertile ground for new and exciting filmmaking talent to show off their genre goods in an unrestrained format. Here is the lineup for Fantastic Fest 2012:
38-39°C (2011)
Regional Premiere
Director: Jason Hong, South Korea, 8 minutes
A father and son confront the emotional divide that separates them in the intimate setting of a Korean bathhouse.
88:88 (2012)
Regional Premiere
Director: Joey Ciccoline, USA, 14 minutes
Val has lost control of her life. Those around...
- 9/10/2012
- by Uncle Creepy
- DreadCentral.com
For their seventh annual edition, the Spooky Movie International Horror Film Festival is really blowing things up!
Well, not literally. But the world’s premiere horror movie fest is expanding to over double its regular size, screening over 50 films on nine terrifying nights Oct. 10-18 at its new home, the prestigious AFI Silver Theatre in Silver Spring, Maryland.
The scares kick off on the 10th with the return of local fave filmmaker Richard Bates, Jr. with the feature-length version of Excision about a teenage girl obsessed with becoming a surgeon. The film co-stars John Waters, Malcolm McDowell and Traci Lords. Bates’ original short Excision on which the feature is based screened at Spooky Movie back in 2008.
A few other Spooky Movie alumni who are back with highly anticipated new films include Mike Davis‘ “green” horror movie President Wolfman, which is composed entirely of public domain footage mixed with a rip-roarin...
Well, not literally. But the world’s premiere horror movie fest is expanding to over double its regular size, screening over 50 films on nine terrifying nights Oct. 10-18 at its new home, the prestigious AFI Silver Theatre in Silver Spring, Maryland.
The scares kick off on the 10th with the return of local fave filmmaker Richard Bates, Jr. with the feature-length version of Excision about a teenage girl obsessed with becoming a surgeon. The film co-stars John Waters, Malcolm McDowell and Traci Lords. Bates’ original short Excision on which the feature is based screened at Spooky Movie back in 2008.
A few other Spooky Movie alumni who are back with highly anticipated new films include Mike Davis‘ “green” horror movie President Wolfman, which is composed entirely of public domain footage mixed with a rip-roarin...
- 9/5/2012
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
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